Publications by Dario Floreano

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

In the emerging field of soft robotics, there is an interest in developing new kinds of sensors whose characteristics do not affect the intrinsic compliance of soft robot components. Additionally, non-invasive shape and deflection sensors may provoke impro ...

We give an overview of the EPFL indoor flying project, whose goal is to evolve autonomous, adaptive, indoor micro-flyers. Indoor flight is still a challenge because it requires miniaturization, energy efficiency, and smart control. This ongoing project consists in developing an autonomous flying vision-based micro-robot, a bio-inspired controller composed of adaptive spiking neurons directly mapped into digital micro-controllers, and a method to evolve such a network without human intervention. This documen

A method for the genetic representation of a network (100), the network having one or more devices (20, 30, 70, 80), each device comprising at least one terminal (21, 22, 23; 71, 72) connected to at least one other terminal (21, 22, 23; 71, 72, 61) by a li ...

We propose a modular architecture for autonomous robots which allows for the implementation of basic behavioral modules by both programming and training, and accommodates for an evolutionary development of the interconnections among modules. This architecture can implement highly complex controllers and allows for incremental shaping of the robot behavior. Our proposal is exemplified and evaluated experimentally through a number of mobile robotic tasks involving exploration, battery recharging and object ma

Swarms of indoor flying robots are promising for many applications, including searching tasks in collapsing buildings, or mobile surveillance and monitoring tasks in complex man-made structures. For tasks that employ several flying robots, spatial-coordina ...

Most existing robots are designed to exploit only one single locomotion mode, such as rolling, walking, flying, swimming, or jumping, which limits their flexibility and adaptability to different environments where specific and different locomotion capabili ...

The promise of Evolutionary Robotics (ER) to completely automatize the design of robot controllers and/or morphologies is an idea with great appeal not only to researchers, but also to students. However, when attempting to grab and hold student interest, t ...

A system for interacting with a remote object comprising a wearable jacket for a user, two actuators for supporting arms of the user, motors for causing movements to at least one of a torso and the arms of the user, and sensors for measuring at least one o ...

Aerial Robotics are interesting and useful tools because they have some intrinsic advantages over ground and water based systems, like the possibility to observe things from above or to locomote without being perturbed by obstacles and rough terrain. However, research in this field is limited by the complexity and expensiveness of existing platforms. To boost the popularity of aerial robotics and provide easier access to it, we present the first steps of developing an autonomous flying platform that is uniq

Programmable self-assembly of chained robotic systems holds potential for the automatic construction of complex robots from a minimal set of building blocks. However, current robotic platforms are limited to modules of uniform rigidity, which results in a ...

We review recent experiments in evolutionary robotics carried out in dynamic environments and across different robotic platforms. We then introduce a new evolutionary approach where robots are evolved for their ability to adapt online. Several experiments show that this new approach is much faster, more powerful, and scalable that the traditional approach.

For micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) involved in search and rescue missions, the ability to locate the source of a distress sound signal is significantly important and allows fast localization of victims and rescuers during nighttime, through foliage and in du ...

A hollow variable stiffness thread including a flexible inner tube, a conductive shape memory polymer (CSMP) layer arranged around the inner tube forming a variable stiffness zone, a flexible encapsulation layer arranged around the CSMP layer, and a first ...

Sleep/wake classification systems that rely on phys- iological signals suffer from inter-subject differences that make accurate classification with a single, subject-independent model difficult. To overcome the limitations of inter-subject variability we s ...

Haptic guidance has been shown to improve performance in many fields as it can give additional information without overloading other sensory channels such as vision or audition. Our group is investigating new intuitive ways to interact with robots, and we ...

Unpowered flight can be used in microrobotics to overcome ground obstacles and to increase the traveling distance per energy unit. In order to explore the potential of goal-directed gliding in the domain of miniature robotics, we developed a 22cm microglid ...

Summarizing, we present a 1.5g gliding robot that can do phototaxis as a first step towards a novel palm sized self deploying microglider. To reduce the weight, we developed a 0.2g SMA actuator for rudder control that is harmoniously integrated in the airframe structure. We show that gliding flight is an energy efficient and easy to use aerial locomotion method for small robots.

Delivery drones used by logistics companies today are equipped with unshielded propellers, which represent a major hurdle for in-hand parcel delivery. The exposed propeller blades are hazardous to unsuspecting bystanders, pets, and untrained users. One sol ...

In search and rescue missions, drone operations are challenging and cognitively demanding. High levels of cognitive workload can affect rescuers’ performance, leading to failure with catastrophic outcomes. To face this problem, we propose a machine learnin ...

Dario Floreano

Chat with Graph Search

Contactless deflection sensor for soft robots

Evolving Spiking Neurons from Wheels to Wings

Method and device for the genetic representation and evolution of networks

Incremental Robot Shaping

3-D Relative Positioning Sensor for Indoor Flying Robots

A Flying Robot with Adaptive Morphology for Multi-Modal Locomotion

Rapid Evolution of Robot Gaits

Jacket for embodied interaction with virtual or distal robotic device

A Low-cost, Safe and Easy-to-Use Flying Platform for Outdoor Robotic Research and Education

Soft Cells for Programmable Self-Assembly of Robotic Modules

Evolutionary On-Line Self-Organization of Autonomous Robots

Localization of emergency acoustic sources by micro aerial vehicles

Ultra-stretchable strain sensors using carbon black-filled elastomer composites and comparison of capacitive versus resistive sensors

A variable stiffness magnetic catheter made of a conductive shape memory polymer for minimally invasive surgery

Adaptive Sleep-Wake Discrimination for Wearable Devices

Haptic Guidance with a Soft Exoskeleton Reduces Error in Drone Teleoperation

A 1.5g SMA-actuated Microglider looking for the Light

A 1.5g SMA actuated Microglider looking for the Light

A Morphing Cargo Drone for Safe Flight in Proximity of Humans

Machine-Learning Based Monitoring of Cognitive Workload in Rescue Missions with Drones